The Gospel of Mark, chapter 1:15

You may have seen it: that photograph of a little girl taken during the Vietnamese War. She was running down the road, her arms thrown wide. Her hair and clothes had been burned away, her skin charred, her face frozen in a scream.

Our race is hard on its children. We need only think of the headlines that speak of the abused, abandoned children. Most of them survive, of course; but they are often walking wounded, bearing the scars their elders inflicted. They are the obvious victims, of course. But there is something of those children in each of us. For none of us escapes our childhood untouched by the sins of others. The reason is quite simple: injustice and greed and anger are woven into the fabric of our culture, into the structures of our society, and so into the lives of our elders. In ways we have only begun to suspect, sin impacts on our childhood, touching our memories, restricting our choices, inhibiting our freedom. It leaves its tracks, its scars in our lives.

Sin is not simply the breaking of a law. Sin is a wounding. We are its victims long before we become its agents. Its little wonder, then, that the Gospels portray Jesus as preaching, proclaiming and forgiving sins: “turn away from your sins and believe the Good News.”

What was the Good News Jesus preached? He proc1aimed that the power and the love of God was breaking into our lives; and it was a healing love. In its presence the blind and the deaf and the lame were made well. Sinners received forgiveness and became saints.

In today’s gospel, we hear that Good News. The healing power and the love of God stand at the threshold of our lives. But we must make space for Him; that holy space at the center of ourselves that we may have surrendered to someone or something else.

Fr. Hugh Duffy

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